Bambi

3

The amount of ANXIETY she felt was astronomical. This had never happened to her before, she doesn't get nervous especially for a guy. This night was shaping up to be more than anticipated.

      She continued to skate but the throbbing coming from her ankle was becoming too much to bear. With the final decision being to get off the rink, she pulled off to the side closest to the counters and sat down while pulling down her mask. Holding her ankle and trying to massage some of the pain away she felt a cold sensation on her cheek. This shocked her so she jumped back and turned toward the feeling to be met with a rugged hand filled with rings. If her anxiety wasn't bad before, it was now. "Looked like you could use this" He gestured while towering over her as he held out the ice pack. She took it from his hands and he knelt to sit beside her.
  
      As she tried to undo her skate she realized it was knotted and embarrassment rushed over her. She continued to pull at the laces getting more flustered by the second. Eventually, he pulled her leg onto his lap and began to undo the knot she had made so much worse. "Seems like you just keeping getting in trouble, and I keep helping you like the gentleman I am." he said very smugly "Is this your way of saying you need me?" He questioned while untying the laces. She rolled her eyes at the cheesy remarks. "Yeah it didn't sound good in my head either" he laughed with his head down.

     They both continued to laugh for a few more seconds until it became quiet. To end the silence she spoke up "I did want to thank you again though, for back there on the rink." "You don't have to. You looked beyond annoyed, it was more me looking out for another's life." He joked, he was right though. If he hadn't have helped she might have done something very bad. It wasn't her fault though.

      "What's your name?" He questioned while pulling the skate gently off her foot, "Raven, you?" "Mark, you must come here pretty often. You were hurt but you kept going. Why was that?" "Don't you have any hobbies? It's not like I didn't know I was hurt and needed to get off, I did but the feeling of being on air was much more fulfilling than the throbbing pain in my ankle." They both smiled at each other. "Well, I have to go now, got to go make money. He threw his hands up and shrugged. As he stood up she couldn't help but feel disappointed. "Oh he stated, and here," He held out a towel "you have some chocolate on your face." Her cheeks immediately flushed a deep shade of red as she grabbed the cloth from his hands and rubbing her face. "Why didn't you tell me before?" She yelled to him as he began to walk away, "I don't know," he shrugged again "guess I just wanted to see your reaction." She turned around with her head down but she couldn't help but smile. Mark. She thought, not bad.

      The rest of the night went by faster than normal. As the bright white hospital lights came back on she realized that her time there was ending. She wouldn't admit it but this boy somehow made her feel more different than she ever had.

     She pushed the door open and walked through the parking lot to her mother's car. As she got in and took off her mask her mother noticed the slight grin playing on her daughter's face. "What happened? You look happier than usual." "Nothing much, oh but I think I sprained my ankle, nothing big." "Raven, that is pretty big," her mom said pulling out of the parking spot. "Well as long as you are ok, what do you want to eat? I need to know which exit to take." "I don't know I'm not hungry right now," she said while looking out of her window. "What? But you asked me for food before we left the house." This was true but her brain didn't want food it wanted answers, about him. "I'm fine. Just go where you want and I'll get something from there." She said to please her mother and not have her pry any further.

    They ended up going to McDonald's and she got a double cheeseburger with fries and a coke. As she was walking down the stairs to her room, arms filled with clothes and food, she remembered the quiz du in an hour for Geometry. She ran down the steps and managed to make it without dropping anything. She threw the door open and flung her things on her bed while pulling open her laptop. She continued to do the quiz while trying to push away thoughts of Mark that would pop into her head every once and a while. Her quiz was de at 11:59 and at exactly 11:58 she finally pressed the submit button.

   With a sigh of relief and a hand full of french fries, she layed back on her bed while Jay Park's "Me like Yuh" softly played in the background. All the thoughts she had been pushing away for the past hour came rushing back, filling her head with memories of that night, as she drifted to sleep she couldn’t help but smile thinking about the boy from the skating rink.